Update #10: Final, KU wins 82-56
Mario Chalmers hit two free throws, and then grabbed a defensive rebound as Kansas began to slow down its offense a bit with just over three minutes to go.
A pair of free throw misses by Baylor’s Tim Bush set KU’s bench-clearing in motion with just over two minutes to go. Brady Morningstar, Jeremy Case and Rodrick Stewart all checked in.
After Rogers scored again, Morningstar got into the scoring column with a long two from the left wing. Morningstar then took a steal and hit another jumper in transition, adding some salt to the Jayhawks final margin of victory.
A few free throws from Baylor made it an 82-56 final count, with KU sufficiently bouncing back from its first Big 12 loss of the season. Brandon Rush had 18 points and eight rebounds for KU, while Julian Wright scored 16 and Sherron Collins chipped in 13. The win improved KU to 17-3 overall and 4-1 in conference play, with Colorado coming to Allen Fieldhouse for a 12:30 p.m. tip Saturday afternoon.
Update #9: 3:48, second half, KU leads 76-51
Mamadou Diene hit two free throws on Baylor’s next offensive possession, but Russell Robinson cancelled them out while hitting two of his own with Kansas in the bonus, giving the junior seven points so far on his 21st birthday.
Sherron Collins then continued his offensive spurt by hitting another two in the lane with a friendly curl off the back of the rim, putting KU back up by 25.
Julian Wright hit one of two bonus free throws as KU began to throw things into cruise control as the game got under the five-minute mark. Rogers scored on the other end, giving him a double-double with 11 points and 14 rebounds.
Russell Robinson then got his eighth point on a bonus free throw, and while missing the second, Aaron Bruce was called for a foul in the lane, putting Julian Wright at the line. He hit two more free throws, putting KU up 76-49. A Baylor hoop from Jerrells sent the game into its final full break.
Update #8: 6:38, second half, KU leads 68-45
With Baylor’s overall intensity having dipped a bit, Julian Wright drew a foul out of the timeout, and hit two free throws to put KU back up by 25.
Jerrells right after that put his team in the bonus and hit two free throws of his own. Then, after ripping down a defensive board on a Wright missed jumper, Rogers put a ball in the hoop inside and drew a foul at the other end, and the free throw brought Baylor back within 20 points at the 10-minute mark, with KU leading 61-41.
Wright then threw up another mid-range jumper, and the miss again turned into a Kevin Rogers defensive board. Baylor couldn’t convert offensively this time, though.
Baylor scored again to make it an 18 point game out of a Bill Self timeout, but the run was again short-lived, as Sherron Collins hit his third three of the game.
Collins moments later expanded it to a 23-point game again with his first two-point field goal of the night, slicing to the hoop down the left.
Update #7: 11:36, second half, KU leads 59-36
Brandon Rush bumped his point total to 17 points on a tip-in, putting KU’s lead to 25 points with just under 15 minutes to play. He then took a loose ball and went the length of the floor, drawing Jerrells’ third foul and another trip to the free throw line. Rush hit one of two free throws and then took a breather on the bench.
Aaron Bruce then immediately lost the ball out of bounds trying to catch the ball on the run in three-point territory. It resulted in a short jumper off the glass from Julian Wright.
Tweety Carter came back with a three for Baylor, and after Darrell Arthur missed a shot similar to Julian Wright’s, Russell Robinson was called for a defensive foul on the other end.
But Wright swatted a shot hard at the other end, and on the other end Arthur was called for a charge after his drive to the lane originally drew a blocking call on a Baylor defender. Diene turned it into two points for Baylor.
A KU defensive foul brought the game to another break, with KU maintaining a 23-point lead.
Update #6: 15:31, second half, KU leads 54-31
Julian Wright missed inside out of the half on KU’s first possession, and Mamadou Diene scored his first points of the game for Baylor. He was fouled and missed his free throw, and that was followed by two more misses by the Bears, who shot 18 percent from the field in the first half.
Darrell Arthur scored to give himself six points in response, but Aaron Bruce answered it with his second three of the game.
Brandon Rush came down and hit his second three, keeping KU’s lead over 20 points at 45-23. Bruce continued to build off of his three, though, hitting an and-one jumper off of the glass on the other end. He missed the free throw, though, and Arthur ripped down another extended rebound. That turned into Mario Chalmers’ first three of the night and his second so far in Big 12 play.
Kevin Rogers followed another Baylor miss with a two-handed dunk, pulling Baylor to a 48-27 deficit.
Brandon Rush negated it, though, continuing his offensive surge by knifing the lane and dropping in two points off the glass and drawing a foul with it. He hit the free throw to give himself 15 points and six rebounds so far. Curtis Jerrells scored again for Baylor after Russell Robinson was tossed to the floor hard on the offensive end.
Baylor called a timeout after Jerrells’ score, and Chalmers came out of it by hitting his second three in just minutes, and it led to a timeout at 15:23 with KU holding a commanding 54-31 lead.
Update #5: Halftime, KU leads 40-18
After a Kevin Rogers athletic tip-in after an Aaron Bruce missed three, Sasha Kaun put away his third field goal of the game with a two-handed dunk falling from the hoop inside. A Brandon Rush three extended KU to a 35-16 lead and gave the sophomore wing seven points so far.
Jeremy Case pulled down a long rebound off of another Baylor miss, and Brandon Rush then passed up an open three for KU’s 10th assist of the night. It led Julian Wright to his seventh and eighth points of the game with an inside layup, and Wright drew a foul with it. He hit the free throw, putting KU up 38-16 with less than a minute to go until halftime.
Tweety Carter hit two free throws with Baylor in the bonus, and gave KU the final possession of the half. Julian Wright was left with an awkward three, which hit the front of the rim and was gathered by Brandon Rush. He faded away on the left elbow and swished home a mid-range jumper with time expiring. It gave him nine points and put KU up 40-18 at the break. Wright also has nine points for KU, while Sasha Kaun and Sherron Collins each have six.
Update #4: 3:57, first half, KU leads 30-14
Wright rolled his ankle before the break, but appeared to be fine while relaxing a bit on the bench, and Baylor exited the timeout in similar fashion, missing another deep shot. Chalmers tried a three of his own on the other end, but after the ball slowly rolled off the rim, Brandon Rush soared to throw it home and do a pull-up on the rim, extending KU’s lead to 20 points for the second time in the game.
Baylor’s Curtis Jerrells scored with just over six minutes to go in the half on an open-court one-handed slam to awaken the Ferrell Center crowd a tad, and Jerrells then got himself to the free throw line off of a wildly-missed three by Collins.
Wright re-entered the game in between a pair of made Jerrells free throws, putting Baylor into double digits nearly 16 minutes into the game.
Kaun then missed an inside shot off of the side of the rim on the left after a nifty dish from Wright, who already has six points and five rebounds. In response, Henry Dugat made Baylor’s second three of the game, making it a 27-14 game and forcing Bill Self to call a quick timeout.
Russell Robinson rolled in a three from the left side to end Baylor’s short run, and he followed it up with a steal on the other end, only to throw it away, leading to a television timeout at the 3:57 mark.
Update #3: 7:16, first half, KU leads 25-7
Aaron Bruce missed a layup and then a three-pointer out of the timeout, but KU couldn’t pad its lead any more than it was during the timeout, turning the ball over twice.
Baylor, though, mirrored that with an illegal pick, giving the ball back to KU again as the first half passed its midway point. Sherron Collins then scored his first points of the game on a three from the right wing off of an offensive board by Sasha Kaun.
At 8:54, Baylor finally scored again, with Kevin Rogers getting an easy look inside off of a sly move against Sasha Kaun, but couldn’t string together back-to-back successful offensive possessions, as another miss just turned into a transition layup for Brandon Rush, putting KU up 22-5.
Baylor took another timeout, and out of it, freshman guard Tweety Carter soared through the lane for a layup high off the glass, and Kevin Rogers grabbed a lengthy defensive board off of a Brandon Rush miss from outside.
Though after Baylor couldn’t score again, Sherron Collins hit his second three of the game.
After the trifecta, Julian Wright limped off the floor, and KU headed into the game’s third television break with an 18-point lead.
Update #2: 11:06, first half, KU leads 17-3
Between television timeouts, Baylor’s offense still couldn’t find any kind of flow. KU simply built its lead.
Julian Wright scored on a layup just a minute out of the break, and Darrell Arthur then scored four straight points to start his return to Texas with a bang, putting KU up 17-3 with 11:06 left until break.
While KU has started 7-of-9 from the field, Baylor is just 1-of-14.
Update #1: 14:30, first half, KU leads 11-3
Baylor’s opening possession off of the tip was unsteady from the start, and it resulted in a Russell Robinson steal off of a Julian Wright strip. Mario Chalmers took the feed from Robinson, and was fouled in the open court by Curtis Jerrells. He hit the first, missed the second, and put KU up 1-0 early.
Wright then scored on a big two-handed slam on the other end off of a Brandon Rush steal inside.
Baylor’s Aaron Bruce, though, hit a guarded three-pointer on the other end to tie the game. Sasha Kaun came right back by going inside with a semi-spin move and dropping it in from close range.
After Russell Robinson was called for KU’s first foul, Bruce then turned the ball right back over while looking for Kevin Rogers inside. Rush drew a foul on the other end, but Kaun was then called for an offensive foul away from the ball, giving possession back to Baylor.
Baylor had a couple of shots swatted out of bounds, and after Bruce missed his second three-pointer attempt of the possession, and after the second, birthday boy Russell Robinson took a long feed and went inside to give KU a 7-3 lead. That was followed by another Baylor turnover inside. Sasha Kaun came back by hitting another inide look.
A couple more Baylor misses made the Bears an inefficient 1-for-8 from the field to start the game, while KU is 4-of-4 so far.
Julian Wright threw home a thunderous follow slam after KU’s first miss of the game, giving the Jayhawks a big 11-3 lead early, and forcing Scott Drew into calling a desperate 30-second timeout.
Baylor missed two more close looks after the timeout, but again corralled an offensive rebound, and the Bears’ Kevin Rogers was then called for his first foul after a KU defensive board.
Pregame
The reunion of high school teammates Darrell Arthur and Kevin Rogers has been the main storyline heading into tonight’s matchup between Kansas and Baylor down in Waco, Texas, but KU has bigger issues at hand.
The Jayhawks are coming off of a 69-64 loss Saturday at Texas Tech which many saw as a long time coming, given KU’s two close calls beforehand against Iowa State and Missouri. Rogers, a Baylor sophomore forward, and Arthur, a KU freshman big man, teamed to lead South Oak Cliff High in Dallas to the 4A state title in 2005.
KU can’t lay off of Baylor, though, despite the Bears’ unimpressive 1-4 start in Big 12 play. Rogers leads Baylor in both scoring (12.4 ppg) and rebounding (6.8 rpg) this season.. Along with Curtis Jerrells, Aaron Bruce and Henry Dugat, Rogers has started all 18 games so far for Baylor, which expects a full house tonight to greet the visiting Jayhawks, who are 16-3 overall and now 3-1 in the Big 12.
